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Comment by trimethylpurine | Hacker News Reader

I'm always surprised by the diminutive and inaccurate view of the US that I see on HN. This is, of course, EXACTLY the same in the US and elsewhere. The OP was asking specifically about CC processing.

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OP said _payment processing_, and then parent said

> they are all essentially the same when it comes to functionality and pricing because they are the middlemen between you and visa/mastercard/... and not much else

Which is false, as there are many payment providers using fixed cost models and not touching the CC networks. And in a lot of countries this is the main method of online payments instead of credit cards.

I would not say it is exactly the same as in the US.

I'd be interested to see some stats on that. I wouldn't think that alternative to CC is the primary form of online transactions in any country, unless you're excluding debit cards from that category. At least not yet. And, just like everywhere else, there are countless payment methods that are not run through Visa/Mastercard in the US. Zelle, ACH, Direct transfer, etc.

Here[1]'s an infographic for a report on the Dutch market for Q1 of this year. See the bottom right. iDEAL is by far the biggest payment method.

[1]: https://www.thuiswinkel.org/media/oyhhmgvy/infographic_thuis...

The Ideal platform is essentially an agreement between banks to process payments from a trusted, third party processor, who collects fees from the seller.

What I just described is also what Visa and Mastercard are.

While the graphic might be nice marketing for Ideal, I wouldn't categorize it as separate from debit/credit card.

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